In the year 1219, the Mongol hordes swept into Iran. Led by Genghis Khan, they unleashed a campaign of systematic terror that destroyed cities, annihilated populations, and left a psychological wound that would fester for centuries. The historian Ibn al‑Athir, writing from Baghdad, could barely bring himself to record the horror: “They slew women, men and children. They split open the bellies of pregnant women and killed the foetuses.”[1]
Eight centuries later, a new barbarian invasion is underway. After committing a live‑streamed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank for over two years, extending the genocide against Lebanese people and waging repeated aggression against Yemen and Syria as well as the 12-day war of unprovoked aggression in June 2025 against Iran, the United States and Israel—armed with precision missiles rather than cavalry—launched a second unprovoked war of aggression against Iran on 28 February 2026. According to Abbas Masjedi, head of Iran’s Forensic Medicine Organization, the strikes killed 3,375 people, of whom 383 were children and teenagers (including 7 under 1 year old, 255 aged 1-12, and 121 aged 13-18), and destroyed over 125,000 civilian sites, including hospitals, schools, water treatment plants and fuel depots that turned Tehran’s sky black with toxic rain.[2] Among the dead were 496 women, and approximately 45% of those killed were civilians.[3]
The parallels between these two invasions are striking. Both were driven by ideologies of divine conquest, both employed terror as a central weapon, and both sought to destroy the infrastructure that sustained civilization. Yet the differences are equally profound—and it is these differences that explain why, unlike the Mongol catastrophe, this time the aggressors have been defeated.
I. The Ideology of Conquest: Divine Mandate and Recolonization
Genghis Khan believed the Sky God (Möngke Tengri) had given him the earth to conquer and plunder as a pre‑modern nomadic empire. His yasa code legitimized absolute rule and mass slaughter, and his conquests were framed as a cosmic mission. Today’s aggressors also invoke divine mandate. Israeli ministers openly speak of a “Greater Israel” promised by scripture, while the Christian Zionist movement in the United States—whose adherents hold key positions in the Trump administration—believes that war in the Middle East will hasten the return of Jesus Christ. The US ambassador to Israel has enthusiastically supported this apocalyptic narrative.
But the modern iteration adds an explicitly colonialist twist. At the Munich Security Conference in February 2026, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivered a speech that stunned even seasoned diplomats. He praised Western colonialism as the building of “vast empires extending out across the globe,” decried decolonization as a “sinister communist plot,” and announced that the Trump administration “will not be constrained by international law or any notion of sovereign equality.” Rubio traced his ancestry to Italy and Spain, explicitly identifying with European colonizers rather than with Cuba, Latin America, or the Caribbean—a striking declaration that the US now openly embraces recolonization.
This ideology frames Iran as the primary obstacle. In the words of one US official, the administration sees Iran “in their own image”—projecting onto Tehran the aggression, expansionism, and contempt for law that define Washington and Tel Aviv. Where the Mongols sought to rule the world, the US‑Israel alliance seeks to remake the Middle East in the image of its own hegemonic vision.
A striking similarity between the Mongols and the Zionist regime is their common supremacist ideology. While all imperial conquests are marked by some supremacist ideology, the intensity and fanaticism of this ideology in Genghis Khan and Benjamin Netanyahu is exceptional. Netanyahu has invoked the pseudo‑biblical decree against Amalek to justify the annihilation of what Zionists call “barbarians” in Gaza and Iran—a projection that basic psychology identifies as their own barbarity being projected onto the enemy. Genghis Khan’s ideology divided the world into a binary of friend and enemy, with the decree that the enemy must be annihilated and enslaved.
Underpinning this ideology is a powerful pro-Israel faction within the US political elite, often referred to as the “Epstein class” (named after notorious financier Jeffrey Epstein, whose network exemplified the nexus of money, power, and Zionist advocacy). This class—which includes both Christian Zionists and secular Zionist advocates—has driven US policy toward unconditional support for Israel. The Christian Zionist element believes in the doctrine of the Rapture, the end‑times prophecy that the return of Jesus Christ requires the unconditional defence of Israel by any means necessary. For them, supporting Israel is not a matter of realpolitik but a theological imperative. This belief forms the bedrock of the Israeli lobby in Washington, giving it an intensity and fanaticism that transcends ordinary foreign policy calculations. It is this apocalyptic drive that has pushed successive US administrations, and especially the Trump administration, into reckless wars – from the destruction of Iraq to the genocide in Gaza and now the aggression against Iran.
II. The Strategy of Terror: Massacre and Infrastructure Destruction
The Mongols understood terror as a weapon of conquest. According to the contemporary historian Ata‑Malik Juvaini, they would massacre a city to its last inhabitant, sending survivors ahead to spread fear.[4] They systematically destroyed irrigation canals—the agricultural infrastructure of their time—to ensure the land could not sustain resistance. The destruction of the ancient qanat system in Khurasan, described by Juvaini and later by Rashid al‑Din, turned fertile regions into desert for generations.[5]
The Mongol regime in Iran was a conquest state. It was made up of a single large army composed of a tribal military aristocracy allied to the ruling dynasty. This aristocracy conceived of itself as a privileged people whose right to dominate and tax its subjects was enshrined in the supreme law, the yasa.[6]
Today, the US and Israel refined this strategy. The opening salvo on February 28 was a “decapitation” strike that assassinated Iran’s head of state, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, along with members of his family, including his fourteen‑month‑old granddaughter. Dozens of other officials were also targeted. Then came the double‑tap. In the southern city of Minab, a missile struck an elementary school for girls. As first responders rushed to the scene, a second missile hit. One hundred and seventy‑five schoolgirls—most between the ages of seven and twelve—were slaughtered. This was not a military target; it was a deliberate act of terror designed to traumatize an entire nation.
According to Iran’s UN envoy, over 1,300 civilians were killed, and 9,669 civilian sites were destroyed, including 7,943 residential homes, 1,617 commercial centres, 32 medical facilities, and 65 schools.[7] An oil depot near Tehran was struck, causing a massive fire that produced black rain over the capital and left the World Health Organization warning of “severe health impacts, especially on children, older people and people with preexisting medical conditions.”[8] Amnesty International stated that such strikes on energy infrastructure “carry a substantial risk of violating international humanitarian law and, in some cases, could amount to war crimes.”[9]
The parallel with the Mongols’ destruction of irrigation is direct: targeting the systems that sustain life—water, power, fuel—is a strategy of making habitation impossible. Trump demonstrated the same mentality in his first term when he threatened to bomb Iranian cultural sites, a threat that drew widespread condemnation for echoing the Mongols’ deliberate destruction of civilization’s heritage.[10] He also openly expressed the hope that the “terror” would break the Iranian people, mirroring the Mongols’ psychological warfare.
III. The Jihadi Template: How US‑Israel Replicate Al‑Qaeda and ISIS Tactics
The methods employed by the US and Israel in this war are not only reminiscent of the Mongol invasions; they are also indistinguishable from the tactics of the very terrorist organizations that Washington and Tel Aviv claim to have defeated. Al‑Qaeda and ISIS built their reputations on spectacular acts of mass murder, the deliberate targeting of civilians, and the destruction of cultural heritage. They bombed schools, hospitals, and mosques; they beheaded captives and broadcast the atrocities to terrorize populations; they sought to erase the cultural memory of the communities they overran.
The US‑Israel campaign against Iran now mirrors this jihadi playbook.
- Targeting civilians: The slaughter of 175 schoolgirls in Minab—executed with a double‑tap strike to maximize casualties among children and first responders—is a textbook terrorist tactic. It has no military justification; its sole purpose is to spread terror.
- Destruction of cultural heritage: UNESCO‑listed sites such as Golestan Palace in Tehran, Chehel Sotoun in Isfahan, and the Jameh Mosque have been damaged or destroyed.[11] This is not collateral damage; it is a deliberate erasure of Iranian civilization, exactly as ISIS destroyed Palmyra and the Mosul Museum.
- Attacks on medical facilities: At least 32 hospitals and clinics have been bombed. The Geneva Conventions explicitly protect medical facilities. The targeting of them is a war crime, and it mirrors the jihadi tactic of attacking anything that provides relief to the population.
- Environmental terrorism: Setting fire to oil depots and causing toxic black rain over Tehran creates long‑term health disasters, akin to the environmental destruction wrought by ISIS when it set fire to oil fields in Iraq and Syria.
The difference, of course, is that Al‑Qaeda and ISIS were non‑state actors, condemned and bombed by the very states now employing their methods. The US and Israel, by contrast, enjoy the protection of the UN Security Council, command the world’s most advanced militaries, and yet conduct themselves with the same barbarism they once claimed to be fighting. Their war on Iran is a confession: the “war on terror” was never about terrorism; it was about imposing hegemony. When the methods of terrorists serve that hegemony, they are adopted without hesitation.
The US-Israeli Alliance with Al‑Qaeda in Syria
The hypocrisy runs deeper still. The same states that now bomb Iran have a long history of actively collaborating with Al‑Qaeda and its affiliates when it served their strategic interests. Nowhere is this more evident than in Syria.
During the Syrian civil war, the United States and Israel worked directly with Al‑Qaeda and ISIS to topple the government of Bashar al‑Assad, according to former US counterterrorism chief Joe Kent. In an interview following his resignation in protest of the war on Iran, Kent stated: “We worked directly with Al‑Qaeda; Hillary Clinton’s emails confirm this. The most effective guys initially were Al‑Qaeda and then eventually ISIS.” He explained that the US strategy was to “create an uprising” in Syria in coordination with Israel, adding that the operations ultimately “got out of control,” forcing Washington to “go back and put out once again the brush fire that we had started.”[12]
The evidence for this collaboration is not merely anecdotal. In 2012, Jake Sullivan, then a senior foreign policy advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (and later President Biden’s National Security Advisor), sent an email stating bluntly: “Al-Qaeda is on our side in Syria.” The email, dated 12 February 2012 and later released by WikiLeaks, referred to a report that Al‑Qaeda leader Ayman al‑Zawahiri had called on Muslims across the Middle East to join the fight against Assad. Sullivan’s remark was clear and unqualified: “AQ [Al‑Qaeda] is on our side in Syria.”[13]
The practical consequences of this policy were deadly. Despite official denials, US military officials eventually admitted that Syrian rebels trained and armed by American forces handed over weapons to Al‑Nusra Front, Al‑Qaeda’s official Syrian affiliate. In 2016, the Pentagon confirmed that the “New Syrian Force” had provided “six pickup trucks and a portion of their ammunition to a suspected al-Nusra Front group,” amounting to roughly 25 per cent of the issued equipment.[14] Likewise, multiple American‑trained rebels ended up joining Al‑Nusra Front, including many trained under a $1 billion CIA programme.[15] The US thus armed and trained the very forces it claimed to be fighting, and those forces used that weaponry to wage war against Syria and its allies – including Iran.
Washington understood exactly what it was doing. In leaked diplomatic cables, US officials openly discussed plans to “work with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and Egypt to encourage the breakdown of the Syrian regime as a way of also weakening Iran and Hizbullah.”[16] The strategic logic was simple: by empowering extremists in Syria, the US and Israel hoped to bleed Iran’s regional influence.
Thus, the current aggression against Iran is not an isolated crime. It is the continuation of a decades‑long pattern of US‑Israeli collusion with terrorist groups to destabilize any country that refuses to submit to Western‑Zionist hegemony. The same states that now claim to be fighting terrorism have armed, trained, and fought alongside Al‑Qaeda – not despite the consequences, but because of them.
IV. Perfidy and Pretext: Negotiations as Cover
The Mongols at least had a grievance—real or manufactured—when they invaded: the murder of their merchants by the Khwarazmshah’s governor. According to Juvaini, Ala al‑Din Mohammad Khwarazmshah broke a trade agreement and executed 450 members of Genghis Khan’s trade delegation, followed by the murder of envoys sent to seek justice.[17] That grievance served as a pretext for a pre‑planned war of conquest.
Today’s aggression had no such cover. The attacks were launched for the second time in less than nine months during ongoing negotiations between Iran and the US in Geneva. Just hours before the bombs fell, the Omani foreign minister—the mediator—appeared on CBS’s Face the Nation and announced that Iran had given unprecedented concessions on its nuclear programme and that peace was within reach. The next round of talks, involving technical teams from both sides, was scheduled for the following week in Vienna.
Instead of diplomacy, Iran received bombs. This is perfidy—attacking under the cover of negotiations—which is a war crime under the Geneva Conventions. The Mongols, operating in the thirteenth century, had no such legal framework; the US and Israel, signatories to modern international law, do. Moreover, the Mongols frequently broke their word, offering immunity and then slaughtering those who surrendered, a tactic echoed by the US and Israel in their perfidy.
Even the Trump administration’s own counterterrorism director, Joe Kent, resigned in protest on March 16, stating bluntly that “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”[18] Kent told reporters there had been “no robust debate” ahead of the strikes and that intelligence did not support any claim of an imminent Iranian attack. His assessment was echoed by Senator Mark Warner, the Democratic chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who agreed that “there was no credible evidence of an imminent threat from Iran that would justify rushing the United States into another war of choice.”[19]
V. The Pre‑Invasion Condition: Fragmentation vs. Cohesion
The Mongols succeeded in conquering Iran not only because of their military might but because the country was already deeply divided. In the century before the invasion, the Hanafi and Shafi’i schools of Sunni Islam had been engaged in bloody, protracted conflicts in major cities such as Nishapur, Rey, Hamedan, and Isfahan. These were not merely doctrinal disputes; they were turf wars over control of mosques, markets, and resources, exacerbated by the “black and white thinking” and “insider versus outsider” mentality imported by Turkic tribal dynasties like the Seljuqs.
Richard Bulliet’s research shows that these conflicts became so intense that when the Ghuzz tribes attacked Nishapur from the east, the Hanafis and Shafi’is, instead of uniting against the common enemy, “fell upon each other with such ferocity that all that remained at the end was widespread devastation.”[20] The city was completely destroyed.
However, an even more decisive division existed at the highest level of the Khwarazmshah’s court. The bitter fighting between Shah Muhammad and his mother, Terken Khatun, who commanded the allegiance of his most senior commanders and his elite Turkic cavalry divisions, fatally weakened the empire.[21] Genghis Khan exploited this ruthlessly. His spies informed him of the feud, and he used psychological warfare to amplify it. He argued that Terken Khatun and her army should join the Mongols against her “treacherous” son. Meanwhile, he arranged for deserters to bring forged letters claiming that Terken Khatun and some generals had allied with the Mongols. He compounded the damage by issuing bogus decrees in the names of both the Shah and his mother, further tangling the Khwarazmian command structure. As a result, the generals, including the Queen Mother, kept their forces as separate garrisons and were defeated in turn. This internal fragmentation—both between Sunnis and within the royal family—meant that when the Mongols arrived, they found a society with little capacity for unified resistance. In fact, the Khwarazmshah was terrified after he first observed the ferocity of Mongol attacks in Central Asia and fled hastily, asking Iranians everywhere to flee as well.
Today’s Iran could not be more different. The 1979 Islamic Revolution created a new national cohesion based on anti‑imperialism, sovereignty, and a constitutional duty to support the oppressed—Palestine above all. For 47 years, the US and its allies have waged economic warfare through crippling sanctions, attempted coups, and supported Saddam Hussein’s eight‑year war of aggression, in which chemical weapons supplied by Western companies killed tens of thousands of Iranian civilians and soldiers. None of it broke the country’s unity.
Yes, there are legitimate grievances. The sanctions have caused genuine economic hardship, and peaceful protests have occurred. But again and again, these protests have been hijacked by CIA and Mossad operatives attempting to stage colour revolutions. A prime example occurred after the death of Mahsa Amini in custody for not observing the dress code, which sparked legitimate protests all over the country before it was exploited for a regime‑change operation by foreign agents. The legitimate protests eventually led the government to back down and in practice allow women to choose whether or not to cover their hair. The most recent attempt came in January 2026, when the US Treasury engineered a collapse of the Iranian currency. Two days of peaceful shopkeepers’ protests followed, but the protests were quickly infiltrated by armed provocateurs attempting to ignite chaos. The plot failed. The Iranian people have learned to distinguish between their own demands for reform and foreign‑orchestrated regime change.
The West’s hostility to Iran has taken three consistent forms since the 1979 revolution. First, a state of siege: Iran has been surrounded by US military bases in neighbouring countries, subjected to repeated covert operations and coup attempts, and forced to fight an eight‑year war of aggression imposed by Saddam Hussein with Western backing. Second, crippling sanctions: successive US administrations have expanded economic sanctions, culminating in the “maximum pressure” campaign that denies Iran access to medicine, food, and essential goods – a deliberate policy to turn the population against the government. Third, demonization: Western governments and their compliant media have systematically propagated Islamophobia and Iranophobia, especially after 9/11, portraying Iran as a “terrorist state” and the Islamic Republic as a pariah. This triple assault – siege, sanctions, and slander – has created the very grievances that the West then cynically points to as justification for regime change.
When the US and Israel launched their war on February 28, they expected the nation to collapse. Instead, massive demonstrations erupted across Iran in defiance of the aggressors. The IRGC spokesman, General Sardar Naini, stated that the US “made a mistake hoping to sow chaos by assassinating Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.”[22] Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi declared that Iran would fight “until Trump is convinced of the fallacy of his aggression.”[23]
VI. Collaboration and Mitigation: A Crucial Difference
The divisions among the two main Sunni denominations in Iran at the time of the Mongol invasions led in several cases to betrayals which opened the gates of cities to the invaders. After the victory of the Mongols, some Iranian scholars and administrators entered the service of the conquerors. Figures like Nasir al‑Din Tusi—one of the greatest scientists of the age—joined Hulegu Khan’s court after the fall of Alamut.[24] The Juvaini family, which had served the Khwarazmshahs, became ministers under the Ilkhans.[25] The modern historian Shirin Bayani has argued that this collaboration was not merely survivalist; it was an attempt to mitigate the brutality of Mongol rule and to preserve Iranian culture and administrative knowledge.[26] Tusi, for example, used his position to build the Maragheh observatory and to influence the Ilkhans toward greater patronage of science.
This kind of accommodation emerged only after resistance had been crushed and the possibility of independent statehood had vanished. It was a choice born of weakness, made when defeat was already sealed.
Today, no such dynamic exists. Despite relentless efforts by US and Israeli intelligence to recruit agents through sanctions pressure, economic inducements, and ideological appeals, there has been no significant internal collaboration. The monarchist exiles and the MEK, who openly support the bombing, have no domestic base. The attempted colour revolution of January 2026 failed to spark broader unrest. Trump later admitted that the United States had attempted to send weapons to the Kurds to help with the riots, but the arms were diverted—a significant admission of direct material support for anti-government actors.[27] The February 28 assassinations intended to decapitate the leadership have instead unified the country to levels not seen since the early days of the Islamic revolution. There is no Tusi figure negotiating with the new conquerors because the resistance has not been broken—and shows no sign of breaking.
VII. The Psychological Response: Submission vs. Defiance
The psychological impact of the Mongol invasions was catastrophic. The poet and historian Zabih Allah Safa observed that the Mongols imported “coarseness, savagery, cruelty, injustice, ignorance, the imbecilic yasa culture of the barren desert and the savagery of the wasteland” into Iranian manners.[28] The moral collapse of society was vividly described by the fourteenth‑century satirist Obayd Zakani, who contrasted the abandoned virtues of wisdom, courage, and justice with the new licentious behaviors of debauchery, violence, avarice, and cruelty.[29] The bloody Haydari‑Ni’mati conflicts that plagued Iranian cities for centuries—fights between two Shi’a factions over no apparent material or doctrinal difference—are seen by historians as a reenactment of the original trauma, a ritualized venting of inner pain.[30]
Today, the psychological response is fundamentally different. The assassination of the Supreme Leader—intended to decapitate—produced not submission but defiance. The slaughter of the Minab schoolgirls—intended to terrorize—galvanized the nation. The cry of “Allahu Akbar” on the streets during missile attacks is testimony to the strength of the resistance. The Ashura paradigm—the stand of Imam Hussein against a vast tyrannical army—provides a cultural template that frames present suffering within a narrative of righteous endurance and ultimate victory.
This is not the first time this chant has signalled defiance. During the 1978–79 revolution, when the Shah’s regime was at its most repressive, and the world’s strongest country, the United States, stood behind him, Ayatollah Khomeini urged people to chant “Allahu Akbar” from their rooftops at night. It was a simple act, yet it built a sense of collective resistance that ultimately defeated the Shah and his powerful backers—almost like a religious miracle. The same spirit has been reignited by the recent war.
This difference is rooted in the historical development of Iranian Shi’ism as a defense mechanism against the very trauma the Mongols inflicted.
VIII. The Shi’a Response: From Mongol Trauma to Resistance – A Historical Arc
The most profound difference between the Mongol catastrophe and the current aggression lies not in the nature of the invaders but in the historical transformation of Iranian society in response to that earlier trauma. The rise of Twelver Shi’ism in Iran was not a pre‑existing condition; it was a coping mechanism forged in the crucible of the Mongol catastrophe.
Several factors contributed to the growth of Shi’ism in the aftermath of the invasions. The destruction of the Abbasid Caliphate seemed to confirm the Shi’a claim that unjust, usurping rulers bring calamity, making Sunni populations more receptive. The tradition of public mourning during Ashura gave survivors a sanctioned outlet for grief, helping to rebuild social bonds in a shattered society. The messianic belief in the Mahdi—a saviour who would banish tyranny—offered hope to a despairing population. By the end of the fourteenth century, the term “Sunni‑Shi’a” was used for many who venerated the Shi’a Imams while still nominally Sunni, and important Sufi orders, including that of Sheikh Safi al‑Din Ardabili, converted to Shi’ism.[31]
For two centuries after the Mongol invasions, a unique syncretic denomination – “Sunni‑Shi’i” – flourished in Iran. Large sections of the still‑majority Sunni population revered the Shi’a Imams, maintaining outward Sunni practice while secretly or openly venerating the household of the Prophet. This syncretic environment paved the way for Iran’s eventual transformation into a majority Twelver Shi’a country under the Safavids. Many Sunni Sufi orders, including the Ni’mati order, converted to Shi’ism during this period, drawn by the spiritual and psychological solace that Shi’a rituals offered to a traumatized people. Crucially, Shi’ism had already served as the ideological backbone of anti‑imperial uprisings long before the Mongols: the 8th‑century rebellion of Abu Muslim Khorasani against the Umayyads drew on Shi’a motifs, and the 14th‑century Sarbedaran movement – which established an independent government in Khurasan in defiance of Mongol rule – was explicitly Shi’a. Thus, Shi’ism was not a passive refuge but an active ideology of resistance, a tradition that would culminate in the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the present defiance against the US‑Israeli aggression.
This transformation did not happen overnight. Over the following centuries, Shi’ism became deeply embedded in Iranian identity. By the early sixteenth century, the Safavid dynasty established Twelver Shi’ism as the official religion of Iran, creating a national religious framework that distinguished Iran from its Sunni neighbors and provided a unifying ideology.[32]
The Shi’a clergy grew in authority and social capital during the Safavid and subsequent periods, becoming the natural leaders of popular resistance against foreign domination. In the 1891 Tobacco Protest, they mobilized the nation against British economic imperialism. In the 1906 Constitutional Revolution, the clergy were at the forefront of the movement to establish a parliament and limit arbitrary royal power.[33]
When the democratically elected government of Mohammad Mossadegh was overthrown in 1953 by the joint MI6‑CIA coup—for the crime of nationalizing Iranian oil—the secular nationalist movement was crushed and some of the National Front leaders collaborated with the newly installed Shah’s regime. But the Shi’a clerical network remained intact, and it was to them that the mantle of resistance passed.
Ayatollah Khomeini emerged as the voice of defiance in the 1963–64 protests against the Shah’s “capitulation” law—a Status of Forces Agreement demanded by the United States that granted American military personnel and their families immunity from prosecution in Iranian courts. The Shah introduced the law in 1964 to secure a $200 million military loan from the US. In a historic speech on October 26, 1964, Khomeini declared the law a violation of Islamic law and a betrayal of Iranian sovereignty. He termed it “colonialism,” claimed it turned Iran into an American colony, and declared that even if an American servant or cook violated Iranian laws, they could not be prosecuted by Iranian authorities. He famously proclaimed: “Under the Shah, an American dog has more rights than an Iranian person.”[34] Denouncing the law and the parliament that passed it as null and void, he attacked the Shah as a puppet of both the US and Israel.
Following this speech, Khomeini was arrested on November 4, 1964, and immediately exiled to Turkey, later to Iraq. The speech significantly boosted his reputation, uniting various groups against the Shah and merging the struggle for Islamic principles with anti‑imperialism. From Najaf, he continued to build the ideological and organizational framework that would culminate in the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
That revolution was not merely a political upheaval; it was the culmination of a centuries‑long process in which a traumatized population had gradually developed a religious‑political identity capable of resisting foreign domination. The Mongol invasions had shattered Iran’s Golden Age, but the Shi’a response to that trauma created the cultural and ideological resources that would eventually produce a modern nation‑state uniquely resistant to imperialism.
Today, when Iranians face the US‑Israeli aggression, they draw on this deep historical well. The same faith that helped their ancestors survive the Mongols now provides a framework for defiance. The narrative of Karbala—of Imam Hussein standing against overwhelming tyranny—is invoked in Friday prayers, in political speeches, and on the streets. The martyrdom of the Minab schoolgirls is mourned with the same rituals of Ashura, transforming their deaths into symbols of resistance rather than submission.
This historical arc explains why the current aggression did not produce the same outcome as the Mongol invasions. The Mongols encountered a society still in the early stages of forging a cohesive national‑religious identity; today’s aggressors confronted a society that had, over eight centuries, built that identity precisely to withstand external assault.
IX. The Lingering Legacy: From Ritualized Violence to National Resistance
The Mongol trauma did not end with the fall of the Ilkhanate. Its psychological and social effects persisted for centuries, manifesting in patterns of ritualized violence that became embedded in Iranian urban life. In the aftermath of the invasions, Sufi orders proliferated as khanaqahs (lodges) offered sanctuary, food, lodging, and education to a traumatized population seeking refuge from the chaos.[35] Many of these Sufi denominations gradually converted to Shi’ism, providing a spiritual and communal framework that helped Iranians cope with the devastation. Yet the deeper scars of the catastrophe continued to shape social behavior.
For centuries, Iranian cities were plagued by the Haydari‑Ni’mati conflicts—factional fights between two Shi’a groups that had no apparent material or doctrinal basis. These ritualized battles, which could erupt over any pretext, often resulted in deaths and numerous injuries.[36] Even the commemoration of Ashura became intertwined with practices of self‑flagellation and the beating of children—expressions of internalized pain that reflected the unresolved trauma of the Mongol and Timurid eras.[37]
What began to break this pattern was the emergence of a new form of resistance against modern imperialism. The Tobacco Protest of 1891–92 saw the Shi’a grand clergy, led by Mirza Hasan Shirazi, issue a fatwa against the British monopoly on tobacco, mobilizing the nation in a unified boycott that forced the Shah to cancel the concession. This movement marked the first time the clergy played a national political role against imperialist plunder and the Qajar rulers’ submission to foreign powers.[38]
The 1906 Constitutional Revolution deepened this transformation. For the first time, Iranians from all walks of life—clergy, merchants, intellectuals, and urban guilds—demanded a parliament and limits on arbitrary royal power.[39] While the revolution faced setbacks, it established the idea of popular sovereignty and national resistance as central to Iranian political consciousness. The Shi’a clergy, who had once been absorbed in local rituals and sectarian conflicts, now emerged as the vanguard of anti‑imperialist struggle—a role that culminated in the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Thus, the historical arc from the Mongol trauma to the present is not simply a story of unbroken suffering. It is a story of transformation: a traumatized population gradually forged new forms of solidarity, first in Sufi lodges and Shi’a rituals, then in national movements against colonialism, and finally in a revolutionary state that has, for forty‑seven years, withstood the most powerful empires on earth.
X. The Role of Law: Yasa vs. International Law
The Mongols operated under yasa, a code that legitimized absolute power and mass slaughter. They made no pretense of legality. Their rule was openly based on the principle that the conquered existed to serve the conquerors.
Today, the US and Israel operate in a world with international law—the Geneva Conventions, the Rome Statute—that prohibits their actions. Yet they act as if they are above it. Secretary of State Rubio explicitly declared that the US “will not be constrained by international law.” President Trump repeatedly threatened to use nuclear weapons against Iran. The administration has withdrawn from or ignored treaties and norms that constrain its actions.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, in a speech shortly after the war began, made the administration’s contempt for international law even more explicit. He stated plainly that “we don’t fight fair” and “we punch while they are down.” He described a campaign of terror designed to make Iranians feel broken and helpless, saying he wanted Iranian leaders to look up at a sky full of American planes and understand that the bombing would only stop when America wanted it to. He made these remarks shortly after the US sank an unarmed Iranian ship, openly bragging about the murder of innocent civilians. This is not the language of self-defence or lawful warfare; it is the language of a gangster, openly admitting to war crimes, and it directly echoes the Mongols’ boastful brutality.
Amnesty International’s March 2026 report confirms that the strikes on energy infrastructure “carry a substantial risk of violating international humanitarian law and, in some cases, could amount to war crimes.”[40] The UN envoy for Iran formally documented the deliberate targeting of civilian sites.[41]
This is not a failure of the rules‑based order. It is its deliberate destruction. The modern aggressors, unlike the Mongols, have signed treaties that they now violate with impunity, using their power to redefine law as mere convenience.
XI. Environmental Warfare
Both the Mongol and modern invasions have involved deliberate environmental destruction. The Mongols destroyed irrigation canals, turning fertile land into desert. The Persian qanat system, which had sustained agriculture for millennia, was systematically sabotaged. Juvaini describes how the Mongols diverted rivers to flood towns, turning cultivated areas into swamps.[42]
Today, the strikes on fuel depots and water treatment plants produced toxic black rain over Tehran, acid rain over agricultural areas, and the contamination of water supplies for millions. The targeting of the Bandar Abbas oil terminal and the Shahid Rajaee power plant caused oil spills into the Persian Gulf. The World Health Organization warned that these attacks would have “severe long‑term health risks” for the population.[43]
This is not collateral damage; it is a strategy of making life impossible. The infrastructure of modern civilization—energy, water, health—was dismantled with the same intent that the Mongols brought to the qanats.
XII. The Nuclear Dimension
The Mongols had no nuclear weapons. Today, the aggression against Iran was carried out by two nuclear‑armed states against a signatory of the Non‑Proliferation Treaty (NPT). This introduced a danger that dwarfs any historical comparison.
In June 2025, Israel and the US bombed Iran’s civilian nuclear facilities, which were under full IAEA inspection. The message to the world was clear: if you want to survive, get nuclear weapons. After those attacks, majority opinion among Iranians shifted in favour of acquiring the bomb. The Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, refused to change his fatwa against nuclear weapons. Then he was assassinated.
The new leader will face immense pressure to withdraw from the NPT under Article 10 and build a nuclear deterrent. If Iran goes nuclear, the non‑proliferation regime is dead. And if Israel or the US, facing conventional setbacks, decide to use nuclear weapons, the result will be a world war and a nuclear catastrophe.
This dimension has no parallel in the Mongol invasion. It raises the stakes from a regional conquest to a potential global conflagration.
XIII. The New Reality: Iran’s Strategic Victory, Control of the Strait, and the Resurgence of the Revolutionary Spirit
A fragile ceasefire now holds. The guns are quiet, but the strategic verdict is already clear: Iran has won. None of the objectives that Washington and Tel Aviv set for this war have been achieved. Regime change? The Islamic Republic stands stronger than ever. Elimination of Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme? Iran’s centrifuges continue to spin. Destruction of Iran’s missile and drone capabilities? Iran’s arsenal has proved not only survivable but decisive. Termination of Iran’s support for its allies in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen? Iran’s regional network of resistance is intact and emboldened.
Moreover, the illegal aggression has enabled Iran to assume effective control over the Strait of Hormuz—a justifiable measure in its resistance against aggression. Through asymmetric naval capabilities—mobile missile batteries, fast attack craft, sea mines, and drones—Iran has altered the status of the waterway. Vessels now pass only with Iranian coordination. The IRGC Navy has declared that the Strait will never return to its previous status, especially for the US and the Zionist regime.
Observers now describe this control as a strategic asset more powerful than nuclear weapons. It gives Iran the ability to choke global oil and gas flows, to threaten the world economy, and to impose massive costs on its adversaries without firing a single missile. This leverage is permanent. It cannot be bombed away.
But the most profound change is psychological and political. The aggression has not only united the overwhelming majority of Iranians—including many who were critical of their government in the January 2026 protests—but has triggered a resurgence of the revolutionary spirit of 1979. Every evening, thousands gather in the streets of Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz, Mashhad, and other cities. They chant revolutionary songs, wave flags, and shout defiance. Missiles have landed nearby during some of these gatherings. The crowds have not budged. They continue to sing, to march, to declare that they will not be terrorised.
This is the polar opposite of the Mongol outcome. Where the Mongols broke Iran’s spirit and imposed centuries of submission, the new barbarians have rekindled the fire of resistance. The cry of “Allahu Akbar” that once echoed from rooftops during the 1979 revolution now echoes again, not as a memory but as a living, daily reality.
XIV. The Surrender: The Empire Capitulates
On June 17, 2026, the United States signed the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding with Iran – a document that amounts to a total and humiliating surrender. The terms are essentially the same as those the US conceded to for the April 8 ceasefire, which it then walked back.
Under the MoU:
- Article 1: Permanent cessation of military operations on all fronts, including Lebanon
- Article 4: Lifting of the US naval blockade within 30 days
- Article 5: Iran will manage the Strait of Hormuz and collect fees – a right belonging exclusively to Iran and Oman
- Article 6: US commits with regional partners to a $300 billion reconstruction plan for Iran
- Article 7: Termination of all sanctions, including primary sanctions, on an agreed schedule
- Article 10: US will issue waivers for Iranian oil exports
- Article 11: Release of frozen Iranian assets
- Article 14: Final deal will be endorsed by a binding UN Security Council resolution
Iran has not agreed to limit its missile programme. It has not agreed to limit its regional support for allies. It has not agreed to stop uranium enrichment – the specifics are left for later negotiation. Under the NPT, Iran has always said it will not develop nuclear weapons. It has conceded nothing that it did not already hold.
Trump’s own words confirm the surrender. On June 17, he stated that Iran should be allowed to keep its ballistic missiles: “If other countries have them, it’s a little bit unfair for [Iran] not to have some… it’s OK.” He mocked his own hawkish advisers: “I have guys – I like some of these guys, but I don’t think they’re smart – ‘Sir, you shouldn’t let them have any missiles.’ I said: ‘Well, what am I going to do? Am I going to let Saudi Arabia have missiles, but they can’t have them?… It doesn’t work that way.'”
He also backed away from his demand for “no enrichment.” The MoU leaves the specifics for later. Before the war, Trump said he wanted Iran to agree to “no enrichment.” Now he has conceded that Iran has a right to enrich. As Daniel Larison noted, “It is remarkable that Trump conceded on all the supposed objectives of the war.”
Even the neo-cons acknowledge this is a catastrophic defeat. Robert Kagan called it “checkmate.” Tucker Carlson said: “This is a pretty humiliating loss for the United States. This is a loss.” The Jerusalem Post editorial described the agreement as a “monumental surrender” and a “capitulation that will go down in history.” An Israeli official told The Times of Israel that the deal represents a “huge surrender by the United States,” conceding “almost everything that Iran demanded.”
XV. The Fragile Ceasefire and Israel’s Sabotage
The ceasefire is fragile. Israel has already said it is not bound by the agreement. Netanyahu declared Israeli forces would remain in Lebanon “for as long as necessary.”[44] Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi has warned that any Israeli attack on Lebanon or continued occupation of Lebanese territory will be considered a violation of the MoU.[45]
Trump has publicly rebuked Israel’s tactics in Lebanon—a rare and significant event. He said Netanyahu must be “more responsible” and criticized the bombing of apartment buildings: “You don’t have to knock down an apartment house every time you’re looking for somebody, because there are a lot of people in those apartment houses, and they’re not all Hezbollah.” He also suggested that “if Israel can’t do the job without killing everyone else, it’ll do the job, Syria will do the job.”[46]
Yet Israel continues to strike Lebanon. The ceasefire is fragile. Israel is doing its utmost to sabotage the agreement and drag the US back into war.
XVI. Iran’s Leverage Will Only Grow
The global economy is walking a tightrope. Oil inventories have dropped by roughly 380 million barrels since the onset of hostilities. Analysts are pricing in $180 per barrel oil. Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz is permanent. If Israel violates the MoU, Iran can reimpose control at any time.
Trump himself acknowledged this: “The alternative would be a worldwide depression… the strait [of Hormuz] would never have been opened. They are not fond of having billion-dollar ships navigating the strait while their rockets are in the air and mines are scattered everywhere.”[47] Iran’s leverage grows with every passing week.
XVII. A Victory for the Global South
This victory belongs not only to Iran, but to all those who have resisted imperialism. For the first time, a non-Western power has compelled the United States to concede on all its demands. The “Unity of Arenas”—the coordinated resistance front from Gaza to Lebanon to Yemen to Iran—has proven its effectiveness. The empire is in retreat. The resistance is advancing.
XVIII. A Different Outcome
The Mongol invasions left a wound that took centuries to heal. They ushered in an era of yasa culture—of arbitrary rule, black‑and‑white thinking, and internal strife that would echo through Iranian history for generations. The trauma was so profound that, as the historian Ilya Petrushevsky noted, the population of Khurasan was reduced by a similar proportion as northern China, where the population fell to one ninth of its pre‑invasion level.[48]
Yet even from that trauma, something was born: a Shi’a identity that transformed suffering into a narrative of resistance, and a national consciousness that eventually coalesced into a modern state capable of withstanding forty‑seven years of relentless pressure from the world’s most powerful empires.
Today, the new barbarians have not only been defeated militarily and strategically; they have also been forced to acknowledge their defeat in black and white. The MoU is a written surrender. The assassinations intended to decapitate have unified. The terror intended to subdue has mobilized. The internal divisions that the Mongols exploited are absent; instead, the nation stands united.
The barbarians came again. This time, they were defeated. This time, the gate held—and the empire surrendered.
References
[1] Ibn al‑Athir, Al‑Kāmil fī al‑tārīkh, quoted in Abbas Edalat, “Trauma Hypothesis: The enduring legacy of the Mongol Catastrophe on the Political, Social and Scientific History of Iran,” p. 11.
[2] Mehr News Agency, “Iran Forensic Medicine chief announces final war casualties,” April 12, 2026. Available at: https://www.mehrnews.com/news/6479780/.
[3] Xinhua News Agency, “Iran says over 3,300 killed in recent US-Israeli strikes,” April 13, 2026; also reported by Anadolu Agency and Trend News Agency.
[4] Ata‑Malik Juvaini, Tārīkh‑i jahāngushā, trans. Boyle, The History of the World‑Conqueror, p. 107.
[5] Juvaini, World‑Conqueror, pp. 107–8; Rashid al‑Din, Jāmi’ al‑tawārīkh, vol. 1, p. 443.
[6] Ira Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies (Cambridge, 2002), p. 293; cited in Edalat, “Trauma Hypothesis,” p. 14.
[7] UN Iran Envoy, statement to the Security Council, March 10, 2026.
[8] World Health Organization, “Health impact of strikes on energy infrastructure in Iran,” March 14, 2026.
[9] Amnesty International, “Iran: Strikes on energy infrastructure may amount to war crimes,” March 11, 2026.
[10] BBC News, “Trump threatens to strike 52 Iranian sites,” January 5, 2020. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51014237.
[11] Middle East Eye, “Iran heritage sites damaged by US‑Israeli strikes,” March 16, 2026.
[12] RTT News, “US ‘worked directly’ with terrorists in Syria on Israel’s behalf – Trump’s ex-counterterrorism chief,” March 28, 2026.
[13] WikiLeaks email, February 12, 2012; reported by RT, “Al Qaeda está de nuestro lado,” April 13, 2017; Sputnik, “Clinton Adviser Said Al‑Qaeda ‘on US Side’ in Syria – WikiLeaks,” April 13, 2017.
[14] News Sniffer, “American-supplied Syrian rebels handed over equipment to al-Qaeda affiliate, admits US military.”
[15] The Express Tribune, “Syrian offensive: Who did the Americans really betray?” November 6, 2019.
[16] Al Ahed News, “Syria: WikiLeaks: US, ‘Israel’ Planned To Overthrow Al-Assad,” May 14, 2026.
[17] Juvaini, World‑Conqueror, pp. 78–80; Edalat, “Trauma Hypothesis,” p. 10.
[18] Joe Kent, resignation statement, March 16, 2026, reported by AP News.
[19] Senator Mark Warner, interview with NBC News, March 18, 2026.
[20] Richard Bulliet, The Patricians of Nishapur, pp. 45–47; cited in Edalat, “Trauma Hypothesis,” p. 9.
[21] Wikipedia, “Mongol invasion of the Khwarazmian Empire,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasion_of_the_Khwarazmian_Empire.
[22] General Sardar Naini, IRGC statement, March 15, 2026, reported by IRNA.
[23] Abbas Araqchi, interview with Al Jazeera, March 16, 2026.
[24] Juvaini, World‑Conqueror, pp. 657–60; Rashid al‑Din, Jāmi’ al‑tawārīkh, vol. 2, p. 728.
[25] Shirin Bayani, Mongols and Iranian Bureaucratic Families, pp. 112–15.
[26] Bayani, Mongols and Iranian Bureaucratic Families, p. 125.
[27] Times of Israel, “I’m Very Upset: Trump Says U.S. Tried to Arm Iranian Protesters, but Guns Were Diverted,” April 7, 2026.
[28] Malek al‑Sho’ara‑ye Bahar, introduction to Tārīkh‑i sīstān; quoted in Edalat, “Trauma Hypothesis,” p. 16.
[29] Obayd Zakani, Akhlāq‑e Ashraf, in Kolliyāt, pp. 345–48.
[30] Hossein Mirjafari, The Haydari‑Ni’mati Conflicts in Iran, pp. 25–35.
[31] Edalat, “Trauma Hypothesis,” pp. 26–27.
[32] Edalat, “Trauma Hypothesis,” p. 28.
[33] Ibid., p. 28.
[34] Ruhollah Khomeini, speech on October 26, 1964, quoted in Sahifeh‑ye Imam, vol. 1, p. 155.
[35] Edalat, “Trauma Hypothesis,” pp. 25–26.
[36] Mirjafari, The Haydari‑Ni’mati Conflicts, pp. 25–35.
[37] Edalat, “Trauma Hypothesis,” pp. 16, 31–32.
[38] Edalat, “Trauma Hypothesis,” p. 28.
[39] Ibid., p. 28.
[40] Amnesty International, March 11, 2026.
[41] UN Iran Envoy, March 10, 2026.
[42] Juvaini, World‑Conqueror, pp. 108–9.
[43] World Health Organization, March 14, 2026.
[44] Netanyahu statement, June 17, 2026, reported by Reuters.
[45] Abbas Araqchi, statement to IRNA, June 18, 2026.
[46] Trump comments, June 17, 2026, reported by CNN.
[47] Trump statement, June 17, 2026.
[48] Ilya Petrushevsky, The Mongol Conquest of Iran, pp. 123–25; cited in Edalat, “Trauma Hypothesis,” p. 12.